After failing to live up to any potential at school. I thought if I was paying to attend these classes on a weeknight I'd put in the effort that I didn't back then. Went to one term and sacked it.
Would be great to stick at it and learn something like Japanese though. Go for it.

I've been doing some podcast lessons/self-learning but really feel like I need to properly devote time to it to get started. If you feel an urge, just start learning it anyway. The worst thing that could happen is that you don't stick with it. Either way, you've at least applied yourself to a difficult mental task for a while, and learning a foreign language always helps with your understanding of your native language.

I did a beginners course at UCL a couple of years ago but life just tookover then. Particularly difficult in the winter if you're working until 6, facing an evening lesson somewhere in London, and then a commute home. But that's the sacrifice i guess.

Thinking of finding a gumtree tutor this time round, who can maybe do lessons on skype.

at International House, they do an accelerated 2 class a week schedule at 6:30 Mondays and Wednesdays. I felt like I needed as much practical time as possible to get underway. Like you say it's going to be a drag schlepping from Isleworth to Holborn with minutes to spare after work, working an intense 2 hours, then having to commute home, but I know that if I didn't have the structured classes I'd end up making my excuses. Once I've got through that part I like the idea of Skype tutoring. I'm doing a TEFL course at the mo as well so might even be able to do some of that myself to offset the costs.

mostly through apps and testing myself on phrases and shit, I've got a bit lax since I got back from Germany but I practised a bit out there. I'm at a level where I can understand quite a bit just not that confident responding

That speaks Italian or French at you? A bit like the tape they play in the toilets of Frankie and Bennies? I want something to listen to while I walk to work but don't want to have to fiddle too much with buttons and commands.

to try and pick up German. It's a background learning system, a bit twee and irritating, that uses music to embed the language. Wouldn't be useful for proper, academic knowledge of the language, but I can recommend it for a way to get used to hearing the language. I found it kind of useful.
http://www.earwormslearning.com/

Did Japanese at uni, but that was aged 22 - 27 so not a straight after school thing. I can give you general help / recommendations for learning Japanese (books, apps etc), but probably not much point until you're ready to start or it'll just get forgotten.

There are so many good resources for Japanese that it's fairly straightforward to learn without classes.

But yeah, I literally do nothing but sit around on the internet each and every day, so I really am happy to help if you want to ask questions / have me check things :-)

It's decent enough. It's a very typical casual-learning book which could be a pro or a con depending on person. The way it teaches things is quite disjointed - it separates very connected grammar points and introduces things several chapters before explaining them. But it certainly seems to work.

The Cambridge books are very dry and more 'academic' than others, but nothing that should be particularly daunting. The first book covers masses of ground (the exercise book would probably be pointless because it doesn't contain answers), and is likely to teach you the grammar so that you'll know things intuitively. But it's not exactly 'fun'.

Don't waste your money on any books/apps for kana, just print a sheet of the internet and repeat til you have it down. There should be a few interactive web pages you can press for sound. Something like https://coscom.co.jp/hiragana-katakana/kanatable.html but there'll be a better one.

engels could speak over a dozen languages and his advice was to translate poetry or prose between languages, because it gives you a good feel for grammar etc (which is where i think people most often trip up rather than vocabulary)

my advice is to take a course, because it is a motivation when you have shelled out 150€ and also, you have to have people to talk to and a teacher is pretty fucking useful (a native speaker is also something to look for).

i learnt german by moving to austria and refusing to speak english to people. i am now more self conscious about my english than my german.

but languages are great and everyone should learn at least one foreign language imo.